Teaching Islam: Prophet Stories

Compared to 10 years ago, we have so much support to learn the Islamic stories of the prophets, but wow, it can be intimidating to find high quality resources!

When I decided that we would spend this year learning all about the different prophet stories, I spent hours upon hours looking and searching for books to function as our spine.

I want my kids to have real examples of role models they can learn about and aspire to in their faith. In sha Allah we’ll have modern role models as well, but I wanted to start with prophets as our foundation.

Alhamdulilah, after reviewing quite a few books for kids about the prophets in Islam, I’ve come to use two books as our core for our lessons, and two main audio sources as supplements. I’ve also listed a couple more books that we use on a regular basis to supplement.

This is not an exhaustive list, but instead the exact items we are using in our home to teach the prophet stories, mashaAllah.

Islamic prophet books

This is where you can easily get caught in the rabbit hole of Amazon, Dar-us-Salam, and other online retailers. It’s hard to make decisions about Islamic books from the small handful of reviews online, and 1 or 2 preview pages.

Also, I wanted books that would cover all the prophets mentioned in the Qur’an, not just the 5 great prophets.

The Prophets of Allah

Iqra publishers have put in so much time and effort in bringing high quality materials to the Muslim community, mashaAllah. We don’t use a lot of Iqra books because they don’t always fit our homeschooling style, but this five volume set is thorough and written so kids are engaged and easily pick up on the lessons presented in the various stories.

Stories from the Qur’an

Timas is one of my new favorite publishers. My kids really like the colorful illustrations, and they have a lot of story books that also teach the basics of Islam. We use this book alongside the Iqra volumes, just to hear the stories again, but told by someone else.

Stories of the Prophets

These are top notch and you won’t be able to find books more high quality than this. They are a mix of the story and review questions and games.

My only qualm with it is the books are just the basic introduction to stories that are much longer and have more detail in the Qur’an itself. Also, they only cover the 5 great prophets in Islam.

But, you can tell that the purpose of these books is to reflect on the stories and the lessons to be learned rather than memorizing facts. That aim is definitely worthy, and they are one of the few non-fiction Islamic books that my kids ask to read time and again.

365 Days with the Prophet Muhammad

Last, but not least, we have been reading through this book each night before bed, alhamdulilah. We are about 100 days away from finishing, and then the plan is to read through 365 Days with the Sahabah, in sha Allah.

This is another book that’s great at telling the stories with the purpose to learn lessons from how the Prophet (sws) acted in various situations and how to emulate that.

Audio prophet stories

For a long time the Muslim community really only had lectures available for people to listen to, but alhamdulilah, the market for audio books and stories has vastly grown in recent years.

Miraj Audio

Miraj Audio makes a wide variety of audio stories from historical stories, stories of the prophets, other stories from the Qur’an, and tales with a Muslim twist. We have a handful of them, including the story of Nuh, from the perspective of the animals. Pretty cool, right?

A Year with the Prophet

We are totally hooked on this series and since we are also reading 365 Days with the Prophet, the stories and lessons really feel like they are sinking in with the kids, in sha Allah. It’s absolutely worth the investment, and there is a lot of replay value in the series, so once you have all the episodes, you can play them over again another year, or on a road trip. In total it is 26 hours worth of story telling!

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So, where are the videos? We do like the Muhammad the Last Prophet video, but I don’t see it as part of our core lessons, and I haven’t invested in many other Islamic videos, so I can’t give recommendations.

MashaAllah, those are some great links, and jazak Allah khair for sharing! This particular article is in reference to specific resources we’re using for teaching the stories directly to kids, but in sha Allah others will find your comment useful. 🙂